Showing posts sorted by relevance for query holcim co2. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query holcim co2. Sort by date Show all posts

Thursday, 25 January 2024

‘Companies regularly set ambitious climate goals... that often quietly fizzle away’


While companies often gain positive media attention by trumpeting plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, many are failing to reach their climate goals, and the media rarely picks it up. There is little accountability and transparency on the outcomes of these goals, where various stakeholders, like investors and rating agencies that measure environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk, do not penalize firms for missing these targets
Once upon a time, Aggregate Industries trumpeted ambitious plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In 2018, we posted The CO2 emissions that AI ‘forgot’ in 2016 and wrote: ...
we've heard about establishing baselines before – in 2012, 2008, 2003 – and the company has consistently failed to achieve any progress against them. Let's look, for example, at how AI fared against its 2012 baseline: 
2013: "Absolute process carbon emissions have increased against the 2012 baseline" 
2014: "Absolute carbon process emissions continue to rise and are now 13% higher than the baseline year" 
2015: "Absolute process carbon emissions continue to rise and are 20% above the 2012 baseline" 
2016: No mention of baselines 
AI has talked about reducing its CO2 emissions for more than 15 years, and has achieved exactly the reverse. 
Since then, Aggregate Industries has given up reporting its CO2 figures. In 1999, the company reported 228,267 tonnes of CO2. In 2019, in the post Climate emergency? Not at Aggregate Industries. CO2 emissions increase again, we estimated the company was emitting more than 5x that amount – somewhere in the region of 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 each year. 

Aggregate Industries is part of cement conglomerate Holcim. Last year, the company claimed that for 2022, "we delivered on all our net-zero levers", and that for 2023: 
We are accelerating our net-zero journey to decarbonize Holcim. Taking a science-driven approach, we upgraded our climate targets to align them with the 1.5°C framework and validated them with the Science Based Targets initiative
Bravo. But who's checking whether any of these targets are achieved?

Perhaps these Indonesians will. As previously posted, they are taking legal action against Holcim.

 


ECCHR, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, claims Holcim is "among the top 50 largest CO2 emitters in the world", and that its climate strategy is "Too little – too late": 
Climate change is happening. The clock is ticking. The global consensus is that global warming must not go beyond 1.5°C. Yet, to stand a chance of achieving this 1.5°C limit, the remaining carbon budget must be distributed fairly among all actors. Currently, the global cement industry contributes up to 8% of the global annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, since the production of cement is extremely CO2 intensive. The Swiss-based cement group Holcim Ltd. is the biggest player within the cement and concrete industry, and among the top 50 largest CO2 emitters in the world. Since 1950, Holcim has emitted over 7 billion tonnes of CO2, which accounts for 0.42% of all global industrial CO2 emissions, or twice as many emissions as produced by the whole of Switzerland during the same period. Holcim has published a climate strategy which includes the ambition to become a net zero corporation by 2050. However, as this report shows, Holcim’s climate targets and business strategy are not in line with the 1.5°C limit and are therefore further exacerbating the climate crisis. 

This report looks at Holcim’s past, current and future climate impact through assessing its past and present emissions, as well as its future emission reduction plans. It explains that Holcim has largely contributed to the climate crisis due to its enormous historical emissions. The corporation’s 2021 emissions still account for three times the annual emissions of Switzerland and have risen in recent years. The report concludes that Holcim’s emission reduction targets are incompatible with the 1.5°C limit. According to the latest climate science, to stand a 50% chance of achieving the 1.5°C limit with no or limited overshoot, absolute emission reductions of 43% until 2030, 69% until 2040 and 84% until 2050 from a 2019 base year are required.
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Thursday, 21 September 2023

Could Holcim ever be a ‘CO2 hero’?

Holcim – cement conglomerate and parent company of Aggregate Industries – has been entertaining members of the press at its new Innovation Hub in Lyon, which the company has apparently set up to "showcase its sustainable building solutions and serve as a co-creation lab to accelerate low-carbon, circular and energy-efficient building worldwide."

Remarkably, somebody has come away thinking Holcim is a CO2 hero. How – given that the company has annual CO2 emissions more than many countries – could that possibly be?

Has Holcim dramatically cut its CO2 emissions to net zero – rather than just talk about it? Not according to its 2022 Sustainability Report, where we find Holcim pumped some 78 million tons of CO2 (scope 1 emissions) into the atmosphere in 2022 alone. Holcim claims: 
We reduced Scope 1 emissions to 562 kg CO2 net per ton of cementitious materials, which represented a decrease of 2% on a like-for-like basis versus the prior year. 
Of course, continued progress at that rate and the game’s over. 

Dig a little deeper though and we find that the press at Lyon were briefed by Nollaig Forrest, Holcim’s new chief sustainability officer. Her background is not in science, climate or sustainability, but – according to this article – in "communications and corporate affairs at multiple industrial companies". It’s clearly important to Holcim, with such glacial progress in emission cuts, to at least tell a good story. 

So how did Holcim persuade this journalist of its hero status?


Towards the end of his article, the author in question writes this paragraph: 
What strikes me most about Holcim is how a company can go from villain to hero by embracing the future. When I spoke to Jenisch, [Holcim CEO] he was adamant that the concrete industry wasn’t anything like the tobacco or car industry, fleeing from its responsibilities. And Holcim itself is a future-oriented company, he said, that wants to do its part. "Now that we know the harmful effect [of CO2], we are fully on it," he said. "We are part of the solution." Though the past is "interesting," he said, "it’s more important what action we take now. This is where we want to be part of. It’s more important that we accelerate climate action, with speed and transparency. We don’t want to be greenwashing." 
So, embrace the future, forget about all the damage caused by your past emissions and providing climate reparations for affected communities, keep selling cement at more than 0.5 tons net of CO2 for every ton produced, and become a CO2 hero. Easy. 

But let’s unpack that paragraph above.  

Holcim's CEO claims the concrete industry isn’t fleeing from its responsibilities, however that is exactly what Holcim is doing in the case of Indonesian islanders seeking proportionate compensation from the company for damage to their livelihoods due to repeated flooding as global warming has driven up sea levels, arguing that the company is responsible for 0.477% of global industrial emissions from 1950 to 2021. A spokesman for Holcim said: 
We do not believe that court cases focused on single companies are an effective mechanism to tackle the global complexity of climate action. 

And as far as accelerating climate action, we only have to look at this tiny corner of East Devon, and subsidiary Aggregate Industries' plans for an unsustainable multi-million mile haulage scheme for Straitgate Farm, to tell us all we need to know. But NGOs backing the islanders’ action also claim the company is not doing enough to cut its emissions: 
There is some support for this position from a new report by Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor, which ranked Holcim high relative to most of the other 23 companies studied for its net-zero ambition and transparency, but said its strategy only had moderate integrity because it hinges on energy intensity targets, low-quality renewable energy certificates and extensive use of carbon capture storage and usage. 
Finally, when it comes to "we don’t want to be greenwashing", Holcim appears to have put a brake on its Twitter account, but this was one of its last tweets. Greenwashing? You decide.

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Friday, 22 July 2022

Holcim’s cost to society in 2021? 156 million tons of CO2 emissions

As the UK hit 40°C this week, a milestone in UK climate history, spare a thought for residents of an Indonesian island threatened by rising sea levels who have begun legal action against the cement producer Holcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries. 


You can see why. We have posted about Aggregate Industries’ parent, and its record on CO2 emissions. Last year we posted LafargeHolcim’s cost to society in 2020? 146 million tons of CO2 emissions – more than many countries. 

Since then the name has changed but the pollution goes on. In 2021, Holcim's cost to society has INCREASED to 156 million tons. 


So much for all the claims, for all the greenwash:


Holcim maintained its focus on CO2 emission reduction in 2021... we acknowledge we must accelerate our CO2 reductions in the coming years.
And what about Aggregate Industries, Holcim's UK subsidiary? 


Kirstin McCarthy, sustainability director at Aggregate Industries, says: 
We need to transform our business and we have already made progress.
This is the same sustainability director who spoke in support of the company’s wholly unsustainable 2.5 million mile haulage plan for Devon. 

She says: 
Our priorities are to reduce our impact on the climate, protect and enhance nature and the environment, drive the transition to a circular economy and protect and support our people and communities.
More greenwash. 

But for how much longer can companies make meaningless, hollow claims? Lawyers and environmentalists have greenwashing companies in their sights.


As one article in the financial press remarked: 
The popular ploy of marketing everything from burgers to investment funds as 'green' doesn’t look sustainable any more.
Suggest they include concrete in that list.

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Friday, 6 August 2021

#DYK Greenwashing Holcim has taken to reading the Guardian

Who would have thought that the world’s largest cement producer – whose cost to society in 2020 was 146,000,000 tonnes of CO2, about the same as Venezuela – would have taken to reading the Guardian?


Is the parent of Aggregate Industries about to wake to the realisation that its emissions from cement production are helping to destroy our planet? Or is one of the world’s largest polluters simply greenwashing again – making it look as though it cares, when every single day it adds to the problem? 

For context, let’s add the next sentence from the quote that Holcim picked out: 
While no one is suggesting planting trees to that extent, the report’s authors said it gave an idea of the scale of planting required, and how limited offsetting should be if food price rises are to be avoided. 
Nafkote Dabi, climate policy lead at Oxfam and co-author of the report, explained: 
It is difficult to tell how much land would be required, as governments have not been transparent about how they plan to meet their net-zero commitments. But many countries and companies are talking about afforestation and reforestation, and the first question is: where is this land going to come from?
Which seems like a valid point. Danny Sriskandarajah, chief executive of Oxfam GB, called for companies and governments to cut their emissions drastically rather than relying on offsets:
Too many companies and governments are hiding behind the smokescreen of ‘net zero’ to continue dirty business-as-usual activities. 


Holcim makes a lot of noise about reducing its CO2, but – as we posted earlier in the year – progress has been glacial: 
…there was an overall reduction of 7.5% in LafargeHolcim’s total CO2 emissions from an adjusted 157.8 million tons (148m + 9.8m) in 2019. Bravo, you might think.  

However, given that LafargeHolcim sold 8.4% less cement in 2020 – 190.4 million tons vs. 207.9 million in 2019 – progress looks rather less impressive, implying total CO2 emissions actually rose per unit of material sold. Given the attention LafargeHolcim claims it is devoting to the problem, and the urgency of our climate crisis, that’s concerning. 

What’s also concerning is the company's claims on carbon efficiency. LafargeHolcim's main Sustainability Key Performance Indicator is net CO2 emitted per ton of cementitious material. In 2020, this was reported as 555kg net CO2 per ton – down 1.1% on the previous year. The reduction mirrors 2019, down 1.4%, and 2018, down 1%. If 2020’s rate of reduction were to be maintained, the company’s revised 2030 target of 475kg net CO2 per ton would not be met.
Who knows where our climate will be by 2030, 2040, let alone 2050 – at the rate of change we have been seeing. As for carbon offsets: 


The UK is already undergoing disruptive climate change with increased rainfall, sunshine and temperatures, according to scientists. The year 2020 was the third warmest, fifth wettest and eight sunniest on record, scientists said in the latest UK State of the Climate report. No other year is in the top 10 on all three criteria. 

Mike Kendon, senior climate scientist at the Met Office National Climate Information Centre, and lead author of the study, said: “We see a continuing emerging pattern of more high temperature and more rainfall extremes. The baseline of our climate is changing and what we regard as normal is changing.” 

Dr Jess Neumann, a hydrologist at the University of Reading, said: “Flooding from intense summer rainfall is going happen more frequently. No city, town or village is immune to flooding and we all need to take hard action right now if we are to prevent impacts from getting worse in the future.” 
Meanwhile, in other news:

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Thursday, 27 October 2022

Holcim emitted more than 7bn tonnes of CO2 between 1950 and 2021

... according to research by the Climate Accountability Institute – that’s 0.42% of all historical global industrial emissions. 

It’s a shameful legacy for one company to bequeath to humanity – especially since:
Leading companies and industry associations were aware of, or wilfully ignored, the threat of climate change from continued use of their products since the late 1950s.
Yesterday, the United Nations warned that current pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions will lead to global heating of 2.5C – a level that would condemn the world to catastrophic climate breakdown. Today, Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said:
We had our chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over. Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster... Every fraction of a degree matters: to vulnerable communities, to ecosystems, and to every one of us.
Cement giant Holcim – previously badged LafargeHolcim until controversies like the one below – is the parent company of Aggregate Industries.

It is ranked 47 out of the Top 100 emitters by The University of Massachusetts Amherst’s 2021 greenhouse polluters index. 

Of course, you'd never know. Holcim doesn’t broadcast its dirty secret. It is the same company pumping out statements like "Sustainability is at the core of what we do", and that concrete is "the ideal sustainable material for our future", and that "Our teams are going above and beyond to keep our people and communities safe, while firmly leading our decarbonization journey."

Maybe one day companies will be banned from greenwashing. There was a glimmer of hope last week from the Advertising Standards Authority, which banned a series of misleading adverts from HSBC promoting climate-friendly initiatives. The watchdog ruled that the bank had to ensure any future environmental claims were: 
adequately qualified and did not omit material information about its contribution to carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions. 
Campaign groups welcomed the ASA’s ruling, saying it was a "significant moment in the fight to prevent banks from greenwashing their image." 

Clearly, it’s not just banks. Holcim proclaims it "takes climate action very seriously." But not seriously enough to stop its UK subsidiary from appealing the decision by Devon County Council to refuse permission to haul bog-standard aggregate 23 miles from quarry face to processing plant – a distance unheard of in the UK.

But, as we touched upon in the post Holcim’s cost to society in 2021? 156 million tons of CO2 emissions, the company’s carbon legacy and the impact it has left upon us is now being tested in the courts in "a first-of-its-kind lawsuit". 

According to Agung Wardana, an environmental law expert and a Humboldt Fellow at Max Planck Institute for International Law in Heidelberg, Germany, the lawsuit showcases an increase in public awareness on climate change and a desire for justice: 
This will be a landmark case in Indonesia. I think many others could follow suit in demanding accountability of major polluters. The homework to win the case is to find the causality between Holcim’s activities and its impact on Pari Island. That’s the challenge.

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Monday, 29 April 2024

Holcim’s climate legacy laid bare in Carbon Majors database

Climate scientists are alarmed, reported the Guardian earlier this month:
This is the 10th consecutive monthly record in a warming phase that has shattered all previous records. Over the past 12 months, average global temperatures have been 1.58C above pre-industrial levels. 
For those looking to apportion blame, the Carbon Majors database was helpfully relaunched a few days before: 
The Carbon Majors database traces 1,421 GtCO2e of cumulative historical emissions from 1854 through 2022 to 122 industrial producers, the CO2 portion of which is equivalent to 72% of global fossil fuel and cement CO2 emissions since 1751. Over 70% of these global CO2 emissions historically can be attributed to just 78 corporate and state producing entities. 
Cement producer Holcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries – is one of them, 63rd on the list:
What might the legal consequences of this be? 
The Carbon Majors dataset has played a pivotal role in holding fossil fuel producers to account for their climate-related impacts in academic, regulatory, and legal contexts. Examples include quantifying the contribution these entities have made to global surface temperature, sea level, and atmospheric CO2 rise; and establishing corporate accountability for climate-related human rights violations.

Indeed, Holcim has already found itself at the sharp end of climate litigation, as previously posted.


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Monday, 28 April 2025

We’ve fitted some solar panels, crows Holcim UK. What took it so long?

At long last, Holcim UK – formerly Aggregate Industries – is fitting solar panels to some of its factory roofs. Bravo. 

Last week, Holcim UK issued a press release celebrating the installation of 464 solar panels on its concrete blocks plant near Cheddar – Somerset sunshine to help power Callow operations – obviously looking for a pat on the back.


But really, why has it taken this energy-hungry, CO2-intensive, polluting company so long to start fitting solar panels to offset its enormous CO2 emissions and enormous environmental footprint? 

It can’t pretend it didn’t know there was a climate crisis. Twenty-five years ago, the company admitted: 
During 2000, Aggregate Industries UK Ltd used over 740 million kWh of energy throughout its production processes. It is estimated that this energy consumption resulted in the release of approximately 224,000,000 Kgs of carbon dioxide.
Although by 2007, the company's CEO at the time seemed to row back, worried that climate change had hijacked the public agenda: 
The public agenda seems almost to have been hijacked by climate change and the CO2 debate. Important as it is, for us the agenda has always been much bigger and includes biodiversity, controlling pollution, waste, water and local nuisance. Sustainability is larger still, bringing in people and products and I believe we need to achieve a better balance in the future.
Since then, the future arrived, and from the early 2010s the UK public has been fitting solar panels on their roofs in their droves. Now, more than 1.5 million households have solar panels. How many of those people issued a press release extolling their green virtues?


The future arrived a while ago too for other UK companies, many of whom have also installed solar panels. In 2011, Adnams Brewery installed 962 solar panel at its distribution centre in Reydon. In the same year, work began on installing 17,000 solar panels at Toyota’s vehicle plant in Derbyshire. In 2013, Sainsbury’s announced it had installed 100,000 solar panels across 210 of its supermarkets. In 2015, Marks & Spencer completed the installation of the UK's largest single roof mounted solar panel array with 24,272 panels at its distribution centre in Castle Donington – enough panels to cover 25 miles if laid end-to-end. Notable achievements, worthy of a press release or two. 

When did Holcim start fitting solar panels? Not until July 2024 did Luke Olly, Head of Decarbonisation at Aggregate Industries UK, announce: 
Completing our first major solar project on one of our biggest sites is a key milestone for Aggregate Industries. 
What was the company doing during the decade that Adnams, Toyota, Sainsbury’s, M&S et al. were covering their rooftops with solar panels? Hoping that climate change would go away? 

What dent will this key milestone make on the site’s energy consumption? 
A total of 944 solar panels have been installed on factory rooftops at the site... [which] can generate more than 415,000 KWh of power per year, equating to 7% of the site’s annual power needs… 
If sustainability truly is at the core of its strategy – as it so often claims – Holcim UK will have to do better than that.
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Wednesday, 10 November 2021

‘Greenwashing – the new climate denial’


Whilst "the world is on track for disastrous levels of global heating far in excess of the limits in the Paris climate agreement", here are the latest announcements from the parent of Aggregate Industries: 


Clearly the greenwashing from Holcim has reached new levels, because for the world’s largest cement company – mining finite resources, destroying biodiversity, emitting millions of tonnes of CO2, contributing to climate change and hardship for millions of people – to claim "Sustainability is at the core of what we do" is simply asking people to suspend all rational thought. Lest we forget, Concrete is the most destructive material on Earth.

And the insanity continues. Did you know "The words innovation and sustainability mean the same thing"? No, neither did we. If you thought innovation was related to new ideas, and that sustainability was about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs, Holcim wants you to think again. Not content with greenwashing, the multinational cement giant now wants to redefine the English language.

But don’t despair. Thank goodness Aggregate Industries – a company that has given up reporting its CO2 emissions – is playing its part for COP26:


It's hard to believe, given its multi-million-mile haulage plans for Straitgate, but Aggregate Industries claims to have net-zero ambitions. 

Here’s net zero explained:

A Sydney man has set an ambitious target to phase out his alcohol consumption within the next 29 years, as part of an impressive plan to improve his health.
The program will see Greg Taylor, 73, continue to drink as normal for the foreseeable future, before reducing consumption in 2049 when he turns 101. He has assured friends it will not affect his drinking plans in the short or medium term. 
Taylor said it was important not to rush the switch to non-alcoholic beverages. “It’s not realistic to transition to zero alcohol overnight. This requires a steady, phased approach where nothing changes for at least two decades,” he said, adding that he may need to make additional investments in beer consumption in the short term, to make sure no night out is worse off. 
Taylor will also be able to bring forward drinking credits earned from the days he hasn’t drunk over the past forty years, meaning the actual end date for consumption may actually be 2060. 
To assist with the transition, Taylor has bought a second beer fridge which he describes as the ‘capture and storage’ method.
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Wednesday, 25 August 2021

More greenwash from Holcim

The world’s largest cement producer is greenwashing again:
 

What Aggregate Industries' parent Holcim fails to mention is the industry’s monstrous CO2 emissions:
 

So, is concrete the ideal sustainable material for our future? Clearly this prize-winning writer doesn’t think so, in fact quite the reverse:
 

Some wonder if the cement companies are deliberately keeping us addicted to concrete:
 

As for all the sand needed to make concrete:
 
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Monday, 8 November 2021

Holcim at COP26

No wonder climate activists are worried that COP26 is a big PR stunt, when even cement polluters turn up to greenwash their gargantuan emissions.


If we are honest? Are there times then when Holcim – parent of Aggregate Industries – is not honest??

Cement is responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions. Thank goodness that growing demand now presents an opportunity for the world’s biggest cement producer "to change how we do things". In case Holcim has forgotten, the first COP was held 26 years ago.


But when Holcim talks about looking at transportation, don’t hold your breath. If 23 miles separating proposed quarry and processing plant in Devon doesn’t make the company think twice, what will?
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Monday, 23 March 2015

Claims and more claims, but who stands to gain the most?

Safeguarding jobs is the old chestnut Aggregate Industries is wheeling out to support its plans to dig up an East Devon farm and haul the spoils across Woodbury Common; last week’s Express & Echo article – East Devon quarry block ‘will put jobs at risk’ – is just the latest example:
THE livelihoods of East Devon quarry employees will be at risk if proposals for a 100-acre quarry on the outskirts of Ottery St Mary do not go ahead.
Officials from Aggregate Industries, which runs quarries at Blackhill on Woodbury Common, and Venn Ottery, have confirmed that this is the reality if they cannot proceed with their plans to quarry Straitgate Farm near Daisymount roundabout.
It is not clear exactly how many jobs could be affected but it is thought to be less than 10.
This argument, and we have written about this before, may have washed in the past, when hundreds of jobs were at stake, but not any more; any local jobs secured by AI's plans should be offset against the farming jobs at risk and the negative impact on other local businesses. In any case, AI has other local reserves and resources. The jobs argument is a red herring; trucking as-dug aggregate across the East Devon Pebblebed Heaths, risking drinking water supplies, and airport safeguarding issues are not.

And whilst AI claims livelihoods are at risk, its Swiss-parent Holcim claims:

Sustainable. That's us.
Being part of the solutions to the challenges of our time.
Holcim has a long history of sustainable development. Our continuous commitment to mitigate CO2 emissions, provide waste management solutions, use alternative resources, and improve quality of life in our communities, started many years ago. Our sustainability efforts today concentrate on climate, resources, and communities...
Which all seems very admirable, but its plans for East Devon, with its polluting 1,000,000 mile haulage scheme to a site of European importance to nature conservation, are the antithesis of such claims.

What is true is that the parties that stand to gain the most from all this are a long way from East Devon.

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Friday, 3 February 2023

Indonesian islanders file climate lawsuit against Holcim

Residents of an Indonesian island, at risk of losing their livelihoods due to the rise in sea level and flooding, have filed a lawsuit against the parent company of Aggregate Industries seeking damages for its role in climate change. One of the plaintiffs warned: 
Our existence is under threat. We want those responsible to now finally take action. 
Not our problem, says Swiss cement giant Holcim: 
We do not believe that court cases focused on single companies are an effective mechanism to tackle the global complexity of climate action.
Well they wouldn’t, would they? This the company that claims climate change is a "top priority", but whose cost to society in 2021 was 156 million tons of CO2 emissions – up from 146 million tons in 2020.

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Sunday, 18 July 2021

‘Climate is and will continue to be a WATER event’

There were shocking, apocalyptic scenes in Europe this week.


Hannah Cloke, Professor of Hydrology at the University of Reading, said: 
The deaths and destruction across Europe as a result of flooding is a tragedy that should have been avoided. 
The nature of the storm, the fact that it was extreme, that it had a lot of moisture in it, there was a lot of rainfall, it was slow moving - we have evidence that these types of storms are going to be more likely. 

This is one of those things that you expect to see under a changing climate.
Professor Bill McGuire, from UCL, was more blunt: 
The obvious acceleration of the breakdown of our stable climate simply confirms that - when it comes to the climate emergency - we are in deep, deep s***! 
Aggregate Industries is plainly a company that couldn't care. Its planning application for Straitgate Farm with its 2.5 million mile haulage plan effectively sticks two fingers up at the climate emergency – as does the company's greenwash document – despite all the apparent caring for the planet from parent Holcim, a company perpetually greenwashing its gargantuan CO2 emissions:


Climate change hasn't informed the company's application for Straitgate. No consideration has been given to the impact of the forecast wetter winters on the maximum water table, the base of any quarry; no consideration has been given to the fact that a quarry at Straitgate would PERMANENTLY change the landscape – on a hill above communities already prone to flooding. 


Familiar landscape turned into treacherous terrain: a gravel quarry south of Blessem, 40 hectares (99 acres) wide and 60 metres deep, rapidly filled with water, its edge expanding towards the town through headward erosion, swallowing up several cars, three half-timbered buildings and parts of a castle. 

When the owners of the Blessem gravel quarry applied for an expansion in 2015, local authorities granted their request on the condition they would build a 1.2km protective wall to prevent the pit from filling with water in the event of a flood. 

But the kind of extreme weather events the world is seeing with increasing frequency come with unpredictable consequences. The protective wall between the gravel pit and the Erft proved ineffective as the water overflowed higher up the river, gushing through the streets of the town before collecting at the lowest point.
We must pray the environmentalists below are wrong – No place is “safe” any more. We are entering nightmare times – but prepare as if they're not.
 
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Monday, 23 April 2018

The terrible human cost of LafargeHolcim’s operations

Five years ago we posted about Holcim and human rights. Since then Holcim has merged with Lafarge. LafargeHolcim is the world's largest cement producer. It is the parent company of Aggregate Industries, and the ultimate beneficiary of any quarrying at Straitgate Farm. Its operations impact lives - both outside the company and within it.

It is widely accepted that the cement industry is one of the world's most polluting - producing 5-8% of global greenhouse gas emissions; it is widely accepted that:
climate change is one of the greatest threats to human rights of our generation, posing a serious risk to the fundamental rights to life, health, food and an adequate standard of living of individuals and communities across the world.
If it were a country, LafargeHolcim would rank 42nd in terms of CO2 emissions; ahead of the Czech Republic and Belgium; nearly 3 times the emissions of Switzerland - the country where it is based. According to Mark Kenber, former CEO of Climate Group:
But the pollution from cement manufacture, and LafargeHolcim’s record on CO2 emissions, is well known. Less well known is the number of people who lose their life whilst working for the company.

LafargeHolcim makes a lot of claims about Health and Safety; how "Health & Safety is embedded in LafargeHolcim’s operations"; how "At LafargeHolcim, we believe that "if we’re good in safety, then we’re good in business""; how "Health & Safety is our overarching value":


But what is LafargeHolcim’s record on Health and Safety?

LafargeHolcim’s involvement in Syria has been the subject of a number of posts. Executives stand accused of financing terrorism and sacrificing the safety of workers. A number have been charged, including the company’s previous CEO. Another executive was charged recently with 'endangering lives'.



But it’s not just in Syria where lives have been endangered and lost. A staggering 201 people have lost their lives whilst working for LafargeHolcim over the past 3 years - 50 in 2015, 86 in 2016 and 65 in 2017- including direct employees, contractors and subcontractors.

Unions claim LafargeHolcim has "the worst health and safety performance in the industry". They had demanded action and a Global Framework Agreement. However, earlier this year:
We are outraged that LafargeHolcim has broken its word and refuses to meet its commitment to sign a GFA. A GFA would help to build positive industrial relations throughout the company and address some of the company’s most serious problems, including an excessive reliance on precarious work and the high number of workers killed at your operations every year.
If an airline had lost 201 lives in a plane crash it would be all over the news. Why isn’t this?

IndustriALL Global Union
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